radiumhttp://www.desmogblog.com/taxonomy/term/11831/all
enAs Oil Prices Collapse, North Dakota Considers Weakening Standards on Radioactive Drilling Wastehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2015/02/25/oil-prices-collapse-north-dakota-considers-weakening-standards-radioactive-drilling-waste
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_217225549.jpg?itok=46hxMSv2" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>As the collapse of oil prices threatens North Dakota's shale drilling rush, state regulators are considering a move they say could save the oil industry millions of dollars: weakening the state's laws on disposing of radioactive waste.</p>
<p>The move has been the subject of an intensive lobbying effort by drillers, who produce up to <a href="https://www.popularresistance.org/75-tons-per-day-of-radioactive-oil-waste-unregulated-in-north-dakota/">75 tons per day</a> of waste currently considered too hazardous to dispose of in the state.</p>
<p>For every truckload of that waste, drillers could save at least $10,000 in hauling costs, they argue. State regulators <a href="http://sputniknews.com/us/20150129/1013603372.html">calculate</a> that by raising the radioactive waste threshold ten-fold, the industry would shave off roughly $120 million in costs per year.</p>
<p>But many who live in the area say they fear the long-term consequences of loosened disposal rules combined with the state's poor track record on preventing illegal dumping.</p>
<p>“We don't want to have when this oil and coal is gone, to be nothing left here, a wasteland, and I'm afraid that's what might happen,” farmer Gene Wirtz of Underwood, <span class="caps">ND</span> <a href="http://www.kxnet.com/story/27957313/proposed-radiation-regulation-has-north-dakotans-worried">told <span class="caps">KNX</span> News</a>, a local <span class="caps">TV</span> station. “Any amount of radiation beyond what you're already getting is not a good thing.”</p>
<p>Environmental groups have also objected that the rule change would put private companies' profits before public health.</p>
<p>“The only reason we're doing this today is to cut the oil industry's costs,” Darrell Dorgan, spokesman for the North Dakota Energy Industry Waste Coalition, which opposes the move, <a href="http://http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/28/usa-north-dakota-waste-idUSL1N0V01PT20150128">told</a> Reuters.</p>
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<p>There is no question that the industry is under severe financial pressure. The same barrel of Bakken crude oil that sold for $136.29 in July 2008 was priced at $34.50<a href="http://www.ktvq.com/story/28108795/good-and-bad-news-as-bakken-oil-boom-hits-the-skids"> this month</a>, putting drillers, many of whom carry <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-30/shale-drillers-feast-on-junk-debt-to-say-on-treadmill">high levels</a> of debt, into a financial bind.<br /><br />
To make debt payments, companies need to drill and frack new wells, since shale wells deliver much of their oil in a fast burst immediately following drilling, oil industry analysts say. With prices well below the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/23/idUSL3N0SH5N220141023">breakeven point</a> for many operators in the state's shale field, the industry's desire to cut costs is intense.</p>
<p>State regulators across the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> are feeling the pain as well, concerned about lower revenue not only from extraction taxes, but also lost jobs and plunging property values. Although North Dakota officials predict relatively minor harm to the state's general fund, planned infrastructure improvements and road repairs might be put on hold, The New York Times<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/us/falling-oil-prices-have-ripple-effect-in-texas-louisiana-oklahoma.html"> reported </a>in December.</p>
<p>But along with revenue from shale oil and gas, the drilling rush has brought an unprecedented amount of low-level radioactive waste to the <span class="caps">US</span>, fueling debates in<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/09/16/pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-agrees-stop-dumping-partially-treated-fracking-wastewater-river-after-year"> many states</a> about how to handle the waste in the <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/">absence</a> of federal rules.</p>
<p>In North Dakota, the shale rush has already produced tens of thousands of tons of low-level radioactive waste laced with radium and uranium, including up to 169 million oil filter socks where radioactivity tends to be more heavily concentrated,<a href="https://www.popularresistance.org/75-tons-per-day-of-radioactive-oil-waste-unregulated-in-north-dakota/"> per year</a>.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>We have many more wells, producing at an accelerating rate, and for each of them there’s a higher volume of waste,” Avner Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina,<a href="http://http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-15/radioactive-waste-booms-with-oil-as-new-rules-mulled"> told</a> Bloomberg in 2014. Unless it is well managed, he added, “we are actually building up a legacy of radioactivity in hundreds of points where people have had leaks or spills around the country.”</p>
<p>Under North Dakota law, drillers cannot currently dispose of waste carrying more than 5 picocuries per gram (pci/g) of radioactivity – roughly the amount found in much of the soil in the state. The proposed 50 pci/g cap, while far below the highest in the country, would make North Dakota one of the least strict states in the region.</p>
<p>State regulators say the higher cap would still protect human health and safety, basing their proposed new rules on a report by Argonne National Laboratory that recommended steps, included in the state's proposed rules, to protect against potential harm to workers handling the waste, including a 25,000 ton limit per licensed landfill per year and a requirement that the waste be buried at least 10 feet below ground.</p>
<p>To be sure, it would be far less hazardous for the radioactive waste to wind up in landfills that have better liners and controls for leachate run-off and groundwater monitoring than dumped illegally.</p>
<p>But some living nearby argue that adding any more radioactivity to their communities is too much.</p>
<p>“The Argonne Report is based on 25,000 tons per year of oilfield waste in a single landfill containing the higher levels of radioactive waste. Based on this, the study estimates people living within a 50-mile radius of a new 25,000-ton radioactive dump may be exposed to twice the normal amount of radiation,” <a href="http://www.inforum.com/letters/3650258-letter-radioactive-oilfield-waste-trade-bad-deal-nd">wrote</a> Theodora Bird Bear, chair of Dakota Resource Council. “This means our trade-off is more childhood leukemia, illness and death.”</p>
<p>Other advocates are skeptical that the limits in the new rules will be adequately enforced if they are adopted.</p>
<p>“If this administration hasn't been 'able to track low levels of radioactive and toxic waste… why would we trust them with more responsibility' on this issue,” Don Morrison, executive director of the North Dakota Resource Council, <a href="http://http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20141219/north-dakota-moves-ease-oil-and-gas-radioactive-waste-rules-dramatically">told </a>Inside Climate News in December.</p>
<p>Currently, much of the waste is <a href="http://http://www.mintpressnews.com/radioactive-waste-from-bakken-oil-fields-sent-to-montana-landfill/173477/">shipped</a> to landfills in states like Idaho, Utah or Montana. But North Dakota regulators have no clear mechanism for tracking the waste, making illegal dumping tempting for some in the industry. In one <a href="http://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/radioactive-dump-site-found-in-remote-north-dakota-town/article_39d0d08a-a948-11e3-8a3b-001a4bcf887a.html">high-profile case</a>, an abandoned gas station was filled with roughly 200 trashbags stuffed with radioactive waste.</p>
<p>A 2014 Associated Press<a href="http://www.willistonherald.com/news/ap-nearly-illegal-oil-waste-dumps-in-n-d/article_3c7d8b30-a726-11e3-b237-001a4bcf887a.html"> investigation</a> found that in the span of one year, over 150 people attempted to illegally dump radioactive waste at local landfills – and state regulators never issued fines or sanctions, simply asked for a promise to lawfully dispose of the waste.</p>
<p>Some operators are not disposing of the waste at all. “There are operators out there who are stockpiling the stuff because either they don’t know what to do with the waste or it’s too expensive,” said Erickson, owner of Plains Energy Technical Resources. In response, state regulators issued regulations requiring drillers to store radioactive waste in leak-proof containers to prevent run-off.</p>
<p>Under the state's proposed new rules, 10 landfills in the state would be qualified to accept radioactive oil and gas waste, but many more have applied for approval, state regulators <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20141219/north-dakota-moves-ease-oil-and-gas-radioactive-waste-rules-dramatically">told</a> Inside Climate News. The lack of federal regulations for hazardous waste from oil and gas sites has meant that state can individually set their own standards and enforcement mechanisms, and rules vary widely.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>At the federal level, radioactive oil and gas waste is exempt from nearly all the regulatory processes the general public might expect would govern it,” Environmental Health Perspectives <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/">reported</a> last year. “State laws are a patchwork.’”</p>
<p>Some states already <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/">allow</a> municipal landfills to accept waste with radioactivity as high as North Dakota's proposed limits for industrial waste landfills.</p>
<p>But the sheer quantity of the waste from the shale rush gives the issue new dimensions – both in terms of the potential harm from contaminated water sources and airborne dust and the costs of disposal.</p>
<p>The radioactive material from shale drilling naturally lies buried in the same rock formations that drillers target, and is brought to the surface both in the wastewater from drilling and fracking, and in rock fragments called cuttings. The alpha radioactivity generally associated with drilling waste cannot penetrate skin, and is only harmful if people drink water or breathe air containing the materials. However, the radioactive materials can accumulate in trucks and pipelines, leaving regulators concerned about possible exposure threats to workers if the waste is carelessly handed.</p>
<p>The oil industry argues that North Dakota's current rules for handling the waste are simply too costly.</p>
<p>“You're talking hundreds of dollars to transport versus tens of thousands” of dollars under North Dakota's proposed looser standards, Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council told Reuters, adding that she had attended several public hearings on the topic. “This just shows how much of a priority we're putting on this and these costs.”</p>
<p>Some in the region find that logic unconvincing.</p>
<p>“When the Bakken oil boom started, the oil industry knew they were going to produce radioactive waste and they knew what they were required to do with it. But, they didn’t put that into their business plans,” <a href="http://www.inforum.com/letters/3650258-letter-radioactive-oilfield-waste-trade-bad-deal-nd">wrote</a> Ms. Bird Bear. “The process to increase the allowable level of radioactivity in our state began about two years ago with behind-closed-door meetings with the health department and the oil industry. The result is once again a green light to the oil industry, this time to dump more radioactive waste in our state.”</p>
<p>Public comment on the proposal <a href="http://www.wdaz.com/news/north-dakota/3669181-comment-period-disposal-nd-oilfield-waste-extended-march-2nd">has been extended</a> until March 2.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:10px;">Photo Credit: Man Checking Radiation with Geiger Counter, via <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-217225549/stock-photo-man-checking-radiation-with-geiger-counter.html?src=G42aDRZqxH1HtPLOS7GluA-1-0&amp;ws=0">Shutterstock</a>.</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6351">shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1088">North Dakota</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16709">landfill</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19813">pci/g</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16713">picocuries</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19814">solid waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19815">oil filter socks</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19816">oil price collapse</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19817">price shock</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7174">Bakken Shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14720">tons</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19818">municipal landfill</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19819">industrial waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5338">hazardous waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14907">regulators</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11421">Rules</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7305">Standards</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14915">dumping</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17485">illegal dumping</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15923">radioactive dumping</a></div></div></div>Wed, 25 Feb 2015 12:58:00 +0000Sharon Kelly9108 at http://www.desmogblog.comCompany Presses Forward on Plans to Ship Fracking Wastewater via Barge in Ohio River, Drawing Objections from Localshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2015/02/19/company-presses-forward-plans-ship-fracking-wastewater-barge-ohio-river-drawing-objections-locals
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_236393875%20-%20barge.jpg?itok=vVAQBcUn" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A major dispute is brewing over transporting wastewater from shale gas wells by barge in the Ohio River, the source of drinking water for millions of Americans.</p>
<p>On January 26, <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=219127&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=2010625">GreenHunter Water announced</a> that it had been granted approval by the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard to haul tens of thousands of barrels from its shipping terminal and 70,000-barrel wastewater storage facility on the Ohio River in New Matamoras, Ohio.</p>
<p>“The <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard approval is a significant 'win' for both GreenHunter Resources and our valued clients,” Kirk Trosclair, Chief Operating Officer at GreenHunter Resources, Inc., <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greenhunter-resources-provides-operational-conference-230700249.html">said</a> in a statement announcing the Coast Guard's approval. “Our ability to transport disposal volumes via barge will significantly reduce our costs, improve our margins and allow us to pass along savings to our clients.”</p>
<p>Outraged environmental advocates immediately objected to the news.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Despite the thousands of comments from residents along the Ohio River opposing the risk of allowing toxic, radioactive fracking waste to be barged along the Ohio River, the Coast Guard quietly approved the plan at the end of 2014,” <a href="http://http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/group-unhappy-with-federal-approval-of-ohio-river-barge-shipments-1.563913">said</a> Food <span class="amp">&amp;</span> Water Watch Ohio Organizer Alison Auciello.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The Coast Guard is risking man-made earthquakes, drinking water contamination, leaks and spills. This approval compromises not only the health and safety of the millions who get their drinking water from the Ohio River but will increase the amount of toxic fracking waste that will be injected underground in Southeast Ohio.”</p>
<p>But the company's announcement was in fact made before the Coast Guard completed its review of the hazards of hauling shale gas wastewater via the nation's waterways – a process so controversial given the difficulty of controlling mid-river spills and the unique challenges of handling the radioactivity in Marcellus shale brine that proposed Coast Guard rules have drawn almost 70,000 public comments.</p>
<p>GreenHunter's move drew a sharp rebuke from Coast Guard officials. </p>
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<p><span class="dquo">“</span>The Coast Guard has not taken final agency action on GreenHunter’s 2012 request to transport shale gas extraction wastewater and has not classified this cargo for shipment,” the Coast Guard <a href="http://http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/coast-guard-statement-on-greenhunter-resources-barge-shipping-1.564533">said in a statement</a> responding to the announcement. “We are committed to ensuring proper research with regards to shale gas extraction wastewater maritime transportation before approving any request to transport shale gas extraction wastewater.”</p>
<p>So how can the company move forward with plans to ship wastewater in the Ohio River? The answer may come down to whether the waste the company hauls is classified as “shale gas extraction waste” or “oilfield waste.”</p>
<p>GreenHunter officials now say they consider their wastewater “oilfield waste.”</p>
<p>“We don't even know what the hell shale gas extraction waste is,” Kirk Trosclair, the company's chief operating officer, <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060013005">told</a> Environment <span class="amp">&amp;</span> Energy Publishing last week. “What we're trying to transport is oil field waste and residual waste, which is basically brine, saltwater.”</p>
<p>The company <a href="http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/coast-guard-clarifies-texas-company-s-authority-to-ship-drilling-wastewater-via-barges-on-ohio-river-1.564717">told</a> the Ohio Beacon it had received a letter on October 2 from the Coast Guard stating it could ship “oilfield waste.”</p>
<p>Citing that authority, company officials said they intend to move forward with shipments.</p>
<p>“GreenHunter Water will continue to transport 'oilfield waste' until such time as the Coast Guard ultimately decides on the proper definition of 'shale gas extraction waste water' and the rules under which such waste water can be transported. Once these rules are finalized, GreenHunter will comply with these rules and regulations,” Mr. Trosclair <a href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/624568/Radiation-Concerns-Coast-Guard.html">told</a> another local newspaper, the Wheeling News Register, last week.</p>
<p>But Coast Guard officials have warned that shipments plans may be premature. Federal regulations will require the company test fluids for radioactivity first.</p>
<p>“The Marcellus shale is known to have elevated levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials, particularly radium,” Cynthia Znati, lead chemical engineer for the Coast Guard's hazardous materials division, <a href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/624568/Radiation-Concerns-Coast-Guard.html">told</a> the Wheeling News Register. “From our perspective, that is the main hazard.”</p>
<p>Mr. Trosclair did not respond to requests for comment from DeSmog.</p>
<p>It seems clear that the company intends to handle wastewater from the Marcellus shale industry. According to its Investor Relations page, GreenHunter Water offers wastewater disposal services for the shale gas industry, specifically catering to Marcellus shale drillers.</p>
<p>“GreenHunter Water is focused on water resource management in the oil and natural gas sector providing Oilfield Water Management Solutions™ to the unconventional shale oil and natural gas plays,” <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=219127&amp;p=irol-irhome">the site reads</a>. “Our operations in the Eagle Ford and Marcellus shale plays are positioned to meet the unique demands of water management needs of producers.”</p>
<p>The company's 2012 application to haul wastewater has been intensely debated in recent years.</p>
<p>In April 2013, the Coast Guard <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403">quietly sent</a> draft regulations for hauling shale waste to the White House Office of Management and Budget, following GreenHunter's request. </p>
<p>But when people living in the region caught wind of the plans, they flooded the Coast Guard with tens of thousands of public comments.</p>
<p>Organizers in Ohio objected to the plans not only based on the risks of spills and the danger that radioactive materials could collect in the barges themselves, but also because they feared that barging would open up the floodgates for disposing even more shale gas wastewater in Ohio, where disposal wells have caused earthquakes according to the <span class="caps">USGS</span>.</p>
<p>“It would increase the pace at which Ohio becomes the fracking waste dumping ground for other areas of the country - not real appealing,” Melissa English, the director of development at Ohio Citizen Action, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403">told Reuters</a> at the time.</p>
<p>Today, the collapse of crude oil prices has left the barging industry under financial pressure, as many companies invested heavily in equipment to haul oil via river. Barge shipments of crude oil <a href="http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/News/Transportation/US-barge-transportation-market-to-decline-as-oil-production-forced-to-slow/NI10052">rose</a> from from roughly 4 million barrels in 2008 to 46.7 million barrels in 2013, a more than ten-fold increase over the span of five years.</p>
<p>But that boom may be dissipating, creating worries of a market bust. “<span class="caps">US</span> oil production has been the biggest driver of the <span class="caps">US</span> barge transportation market since the introduction of fracking saw domestic oil production boom since 2004 but it is also set to see the market decline as more efficient pipelines come online for oil transportation and production slows in response to the global oil crisis,” Companies and Markets.com <a href="http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/News/Transportation/US-barge-transportation-market-to-decline-as-oil-production-forced-to-slow/NI10052">reported</a> on February 9.</p>
<p>In that environment, the pressure for drillers to cut costs and for barging companies to find new clients is intense. “GreenHunter Resources estimates that each 10,000 barrels of disposal volumes transported via barge will reduce trucking hours by approximately 600 hours,” the company <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=219127&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=2010625">told</a> investors in a January 26 statement. “The reduced transport charges are anticipated to lead to significant margin improvement for GreenHunter Resources as well as potential cost savings for GreenHunter’s valued clients.”</p>
<p>But as DeSmog has <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/shale-industry-moves-ship-fracking-waste-barge-threatens-drinking-water-supplies">previously reported</a>, environmentalists worry not only about the difficulties of controlling spills of shale wastewater, which unlike oil spills cannot be controlled by booms, but also the risk of illegal dumping. The costs of legal disposal outstrip can outstrip the potential fines for illegal dumping, and wastewater haulers have been caught simply opening the spigots to dispose of the waste.</p>
<p>The company's overall strategy, which involves the completion of the Mills Hunter Facility in Portland, Ohio before the end of the year, could also sharply increase the amount of wastewater shipped to Ohio.</p>
<p>“Based on those numbers, Mills Hunter would handle and inject about 7.8 million barrels of waste per year, making it the No. 1 injection site in Ohio by far,” the Ohio Beacon <a href="http://www.ohio.com/news/local/company-wins-federal-approval-to-ship-liquid-drilling-wastes-by-barge-on-ohio-river-1.563753?localLinksEnabled=false">reported</a>. “That total would represent about 50 percent of the injection volume handled annually at Ohio’s 201 injection wells.”</p>
<p>These plans may run into significant opposition, as some environmental groups have already launched letters objecting to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a <a href="http://www.lrh.usace.army.mil/Missions/Regulatory/PublicNotices/tabid/4125/Article/565960/2013-848-ohr.aspx">permit authorization</a> for the offloading facility, but warned against using the terminal for shale gas wastewater from horizontal wells.</p>
<p>“The validated Department of the Army permit prohibits the offloading of <span class="caps">SGEWW</span> generated from horizontal fracking operations,” wrote the Corps, using <span class="caps">SGEWW</span> as an abbreviation for shale gas extraction wastewater, and emphasizing their warning by printing the statement in bold. “If the permittee proposes to offload <span class="caps">SGEWW</span> in the future, they would be required to obtain prior authorization from the Corps.”</p>
<p>Environmental groups say they are concerned that the statements by GreenHunter officials may indicate that the company could already be shipping shale wastewater despite their lack of a shale-specific permit.</p>
<p>In objections sent to the Coast Guard on Wednesday, representatives from roughly three dozen regional and national environmental groups requested the federal government launch an investigation.</p>
<p>“Regulation does not turn on semantic differences, but instead, on physical evidence,” the groups wrote as they requested the Coast Guard issue a cease and desist letter and launch a criminal investigation into the contents of the materials hauled by the company.</p>
<p>“Leakage of GreenHunter cargoes into river waters in the present circumstances, where the company insists it need not test or characterize its 'oilfield wastes' could be catastrophic,” the group wrote, “and at a minimum, could pose continuing environmental and health hazards which would stress public water supplies and various forms of wildlife.”</p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:10px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-236393875/stock-photo-picture-of-a-large-barge-moving.html?src=RuwAvyv_MzNd10azFDn18A-1-12&amp;ws=0">Picture of a large barge moving</a>, via Shutterstock.</span></em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11832">barges</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19773">GreenHunter Resources</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11833">GreenHunter Water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7136">Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9356">Army Corps of Engineers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11836">Ohio River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8488">radioactivity</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14329">pipe scale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13963">Permits</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19774">oilfield waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19775">shale gas extraction wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7512">Toxic Waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19776">hazardous materials</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17377">federal regulation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13222">wastewater injection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6990">earthquakes</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19777">barge</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/19778">barrels</a></div></div></div>Thu, 19 Feb 2015 18:17:54 +0000Sharon Kelly9095 at http://www.desmogblog.comPennsylvania Plant Agrees to Stop Dumping Partially-Treated Fracking Wastewater in River After Lengthy Lawsuithttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/09/16/pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-agrees-stop-dumping-partially-treated-fracking-wastewater-river-after-year
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_164353952.jpg?itok=SuWgnRbk" width="200" height="150" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A Pennsylvania wastewater treatment plant alleged to have dumped toxic and radioactive materials into the Allegheny River has agreed to construct a new treatment facility, under a settlement announced Thursday with an environmental organization that had filed suit against the plant.</p>
<p>Back in 2011, Pennsylvania made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown">national headlines</a> because the state's treatment plants – including municipal sewage plants and industrial wastewater treatment plants like Waste Treatment Corporation – were accepting drilling and fracking wastewater laden with pollutants that they could not remove.</p>
<p>In July 2013, Clean Water Action <a href="http://www.cleanwateraction.org/press/legal-action-announced-against-wastewater-plant-stop-illegal-discharges-drilling-wastewater">alleged in a lawsuit</a> that Waste Treatment Corp. of Warren, <span class="caps">PA</span> violated the federal Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, along with Pennsylvania's Clean Streams Law by <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/19/environmentalists-say-oil-and-gas-waste-water-still-discharged-into-allegheny-river/">continuing to discharge</a> partially treated wastewater, carrying corrosive salts, heavy metals and radioactive materials into the river, which serves as the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people, including much of the city of Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>Under the terms of the settlement, within 8 months, Waste Treatment Corporation must install advanced treatment technology that will remove 99% of the contaminants in gas drilling wastewater.</p>
<p>Until those treatment methods are in place, Waste Treatment Corporation agreed to stop accepting wastewater from Marcellus shale wells, notorious for its high levels of radioactivity, and to cut the amount of wastewater it can accept from conventional gas wells by over a third.</p>
<p>“The settlement represents the first time an existing industrial treatment plant discharging gas drilling wastewater in Pennsylvania agreed to install effective treatment technology to protect local rivers,” Clean Water Action wrote in a press release.</p>
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<p>In January 2013, state regulators <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/17/another-pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-accused-illegally-disposing-fracking-radioactive-waste">discovered</a> many pollutants associated with oil and gas drilling – including chlorides, bromides, strontium and magnesium – immediately downstream of the plant’s discharge pipe. Upstream of the plant, those same contaminants were found at levels 1 percent or less than those downstream, or were not present at all.</p>
<p>A significant amount of radioactivity was found in the Allegheny riverbed. Sediments just downstream of the Waste Treatment Corporation’s discharge pipe contained over 50 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of radium-226, state records show. To put that number in rough context, the levels in found in the Allegheny are 10 times those that <span class="caps">EPA</span> <a href="http://http://www.epa.gov/superfund/health/conmedia/soil/cleanup.htm">requires</a> the surface soil at cleaned-up uranium mining sites to achieve.</p>
<p>“We think this is a settlement that is going to protect the Allegheny river,” said Myron Arnowitt, attorney for Clean Water Action, “we think it is going to greatly improve water quality.”</p>
<p>In November 2013, the Pennsylvania <span class="caps">DEP</span> <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2013/11/28/DEP-aims-to-reduce-company-s-discharges-into-river/stories/201311280176">proposed</a> a settlement with Waste Treatment Corporation that would have required the plant to upgrade its treatment methods but allowed it to continue accepting wastewater from gas wells at the same rate for two additional years. But things seemed to grind to a half after those terms were made public.</p>
<p>“They proposed it, held a public comment period, and then never did anything else with it,” Mr. Arnowitt told DeSmog. “We wanted to make sure that we pursued our case because the state really was taking no action.”</p>
<p>The treatment method that Waste Treatment Corporation agreed to install relies on a distillation process, which will remove over 99 percent of the contaminants from gas drilling wastewater, Mr. Arnowitt said.</p>
<p>While this should bring a halt to the dumping of radioactive materials in the Allegheny, <a href="http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2013/09/membrane-distillation-process-proves-success-for-fracking-wastewater.html">distillation</a> brings its own headaches. The process produces clean water, but also solid waste – in which contaminants, including radioactive materials, may be concentrated.</p>
<p>Marcellus shale wastewater often carries <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marcellus-shale-natural-gas-drilling-radioactive-wastewater/">relatively high levels</a> of radioactive materials, like radium and uranium, that rise up from deep underground along with the shale gas that drillers target and the salty brines that were trapped along with the gas.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania regulators have a poor track record when it comes to controlling radioactive waste from the state's Marcellus shale drilling rush.</p>
<p>Although some of the solid waste from drill sites, like the shards of rock produced when a deep gas well is drilled (known in the industry as cuttings), can be laced with radium, uranium and other radioactive elements. In 2012 alone, over 15,000 tons of drill cuttings (more than 1,000 truckloads) <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/local/marcellusshale/2013/08/22/Marcellus-Shale-waste-trips-more-radioactivity-alarms-than-other-products-left-at-landfills/stories/201308220367">tripped</a> radiation alarms at Pennsylvania's landfills.</p>
<p>The levels of radioactivity generally are not high enough to harm anyone who simply stands nearby. But the drill cuttings from the Marcellus have been high enough to contaminate the water that runs off from landfills after rainstorms (called leachate).</p>
<p>Tests of leachate from one West Virginia landfill that accepted radioactive drill cuttings <a href="http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2014-04-21/environment/marcellus-waste-radioactivity-in-water-leaching-from-landfills/a38864-1">showed</a> an average of 250 picocuries per liter (pci/l) of radioactive materials – and peak levels as high as 4,000 pci/l. To put that in perspective, the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s <a href="http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/radionuclides.cfm">maximum contaminant level</a> for drinking water is 15 pci/l.</p>
<p>So knowing where that waste is heading is important – if drill cuttings are illegally dumped, for example, the runoff from that site could be hazardous to people or animals that drank it, or could pollute streams that the runoff flows into.</p>
<p>Despite these known hazards, Pennsylvania regulators have failed to keep tabs on what happens to drill cuttings, an<a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies-powersource/2014/08/31/Shale-drillers-landfill-records-don-t-match-the-state-s-Pennsylvania/stories/201408310111"> investigation</a> by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently revealed.</p>
<p>It turns out that landfill companies have reported receiving far greater amounts of drilling waste than drillers reported generating.</p>
<p>Although state law requires drillers to report what they do with their waste to the state, an August 31 <a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies-powersource/2014/08/31/Shale-drillers-landfill-records-don-t-match-the-state-s-Pennsylvania/stories/201408310111">article</a> by the Post-Gazette reported major discrepancies between what drillers reported to the state and what landfills reported receiving. One drilling company, <span class="caps">EQT</span> Corp., told the <span class="caps">PA</span> <span class="caps">DEP</span> that it had sent 21 tons of drill cuttings to landfills in 2013 – but the landfills' records showed they'd received 95,000 tons.</p>
<p>“That’s not a typo; it’s 4,500 times as much,” the Post-Gazette Editorial Board <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2014/09/03/Dirty-numbers-Someone-s-account-of-shale-waste-disposal-is-way-off/stories/201409030026">wrote</a> in response to the findings. “Although the agency said it has been aware of the problem for 'a number of months,' it didn’t launch an investigation into <span class="caps">EQT</span>’s or Range’s reports until the Post-Gazette told the government what it had learned. After-the-fact inquiries by the agency are not reassuring, and neither is <span class="caps">DEP</span>’s assertion that the landfill numbers are accurate and those are the ones it uses in making policy decisions.”</p>
<p>For most industries, a federal law, the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act, requires that hazardous materials (haz-mat) be closely tracked and disposed of under tight controls. Shippers <a href="http://www.epa.gov/osw/laws-regs/regs-haz.htm">must</a> maintain a manifest that tracks every ounce as haz-mat moves from cradle to grave.</p>
<p>But under an exception to that federal law, crafted in 1988, much of the oil and gas industry's toxic waste is not regulated by the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s haz-mat rules. Although agency officials discovered strong evidence that the waste was dangerous, pressure from the Reagan White House kept their conclusions <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04gas.html?ref=drillingdown">out of the report</a> that the agency ultimately delivered to Congress.</p>
<p>This means that tracking radioactive or hazardous waste from the shale drilling rush is left up to state regulators. And when they fail, the last recourse is for community groups to sue to enforce state laws – a costly and slow process that can only begin after things have already gone wrong.</p>
<p>When it to Waste Treatment Corporation, if the plant treats Marcellus shale wastewater after its new treatment facilities are installed, the solid waste left over from its distillation process will likely carry radium-226, a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/radium.html">radioactive element</a> that has a half-life of over 1,600 years.</p>
<p>Some have little faith that the <span class="caps">DEP</span> will keep tabs on that solid waste if it is hazardous.</p>
<p>“We'll definitely be following up,” Mr. Arnowitt said.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;">Photo Credit: </span><span style="font-size:8px;"><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-164353952/stock-photo-background-of-d-yellow-barel-and-radioactive-sign.html?src=BEG_AjUMcXPfThr6dJDFhQ-4-7">background of 3d yellow barel and radioactive sign,</a> via Shutterstock</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8488">radioactivity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18004">gross alpha</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18005">gross beta</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14317">corrosive salts</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18006">total dissolved solids</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18007">Waste Treatment Corp</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6349">hydrofracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2920">pollution</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18008">Allegheny</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10521">Endangered Species</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/pittsburgh">pittsburgh</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13212">Allegheny River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18009">bromides</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14328">strontium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18010">magnesium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18011">discharge</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16713">picocuries</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18012">Pennsylvania Deparment of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10857">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18013">cuttings</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16714">drill cuttings</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18014">leachate</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17489">landfills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/17485">illegal dumping</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/18015">manifest system</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5338">hazardous waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15185">RCRA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7413">Resource Conservation and Recovery Act</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1471">Environmental Protection Agency</a></div></div></div>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 05:45:44 +0000Sharon Kelly8506 at http://www.desmogblog.comExclusive: Leaked EPA Draft Fracking Wastewater Guidance Suggests Closer Scrutiny for Treatment Plantshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/05/28/leaked-epa-draft-fracking-wastewater-guidance-shows-closer-scrutiny-treatment-plants
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_174440519.jpg?itok=H6rL6qUv" width="200" height="132" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>One of the most intractable problems related to fracking is that each well drilled creates millions of gallons of radioactive and toxic wastewater.</p>
<p>For the past several years, the Environmental Protection Agency has faced enormous public pressure to ensure this dangerous waste stops ending up dumped in rivers or causing contamination in other ways.</p>
<p>But the drilling boom has proceeded at such an accelerated pace in the United States that regulators have struggled to keep up, to control or even track where the oil and gas industry is disposing of this radioactive waste. As a consequence, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=1&amp;ref=drillingdown">hundreds of millions of gallons</a> of partially treated waste have ended up in the rivers from which millions of Americans get their drinking water. </p>
<p>An <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/EPA%20NPDES%20fracking%20DRAFT.pdf">internal draft <span class="caps">EPA</span> document</a> leaked to DeSmog gives a small window into how, after a full decade since the start of the drilling boom, the agency is responding.</p>
<p>The document, dated March 7, 2014, is titled “National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permitting and Pretreatment for Shale Gas Extraction Wastewaters: Frequently Asked Questions.”</p>
<p>It's revealing for what it shows about how <span class="caps">EPA</span> staff are taking the hazards of fracking wastewater more seriously — and also how little things have changed.</p>
<p>“In general, the <span class="caps">EPA</span> memo does a good job of making clear that fracking wastewater discharges are covered under the Clean Water Act, and that proper discharge permitting is required, including setting limits to protect water quality standards and to comply with technology based standards in the Clean Water Act,” explained Clean Water Action attorney Myron Arnowitt, who was asked by DeSmog to review the document. “It is mostly an increased level of detail for regional <span class="caps">EPA</span> staff regarding permitting issues under the Clean Water Act, compared to the pervious memo in 2011.”</p>
<p>The document, intended as a guide for local regulators on how the Clean Water Act should be interpreted and applied, is impressive in many ways.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>It's far more in-depth than the prior <span class="caps">FAQ</span>. It has twice as many pages as <a href="http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/hydrofracturing_faq.pdf">the version</a> the <span class="caps">EPA</span> published in 2011, after it was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown">revealed</a> that regulators had allowed industry to send hundreds of millions of gallons of this waste through municipal water treatment plants in Pennsylvania that were not equipped to remove its most dangerous toxins before the water was then discharged into rivers, sometimes just a mile or so upstream from drinking water intake pipes.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s new draft document now lists almost two dozen individual substances — like benzene, radium, and arsenic — that it says have been found at high enough levels in shale wastewater to cause concern. By contrast, the 2011 version focused mostly on the high levels of salts found in the waste.</p>
<p>The new document also explains that the substances it lists are not the only potential pollutants that must be removed before water can be considered fully treated and ready to enter rivers and streams. It explains that each treatment plant can only take wastewater once regulators are satisfied that they know what is actually in it.<br /><br />
This has been an ongoing challenge for regulators in the past, as the industry has refused to reveal some of the actual chemicals or their levels to the public because, they explain, it would put them at a competitive disadvantage by potentially disclosing trade secrets.</p>
<p>The new <span class="caps">EPA</span> document also serves as a final nail in the coffin for a common industry talking point. This is <a href="http://energyindepth.org/just-the-facts/">the claim</a> that fracking's waste is harmless because it is 99 percent sand and water, with a few chemicals like those used in ice cream mixed in.</p>
<p>“The wastewater that is generated after hydraulic fracturing operations is essentially salt, sand and water,” Energy in Depth, the shale industry's public relations arm, <a href="http://energyindepth.org/national/barges-fracking-separating-fact-fiction/">wrote</a> on Jan. 3.</p>
<p>But, in its dry technical jargon, the <span class="caps">EPA</span> explains that tests have found chemicals and heavy metals in the shale industry's waste at levels high enough to pose hazards to drinking water safety, human health and the environment.</p>
<p>“Further examination based on type of criteria showed that: drinking water maximum contaminant levels (<span class="caps">MCL</span>s) were exceeded for 8 parameters; water quality criteria for human health protection were exceeded for 9 parameters; and criteria for aquatic life protection were exceeded for 16 parameters,” the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s new draft document explains.</p>
<p>These hazards are drawing increased attention from federal regulators in the wake of recent reports that fracking chemical exposures can be fatal. In at least four cases, the chemicals in fracking waste have been so powerful that they have killed workers, according to a May 19 <a href="http://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2014/05/19/flowback/">announcement</a> by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (<span class="caps">NIOSH</span>).</p>
<p>“According to our information, at least four workers have died since 2010 from what appears to be acute chemical exposures during flowback operations at well sites in the Williston Basin (North Dakota and Montana),” the researchers wrote. “While not all of these investigations are complete, available information suggests that these cases involved workers who were gauging flowback or production tanks or involved in transferring flowback fluids at the well site.”</p>
<p>Experts including <span class="caps">EPA</span> officials, environmental advocates and front-line scientists who reviewed the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s draft <span class="caps">FAQ</span> document for DeSmog generally praised it as thorough. But the document also drew criticism for failing to directly address one of the key issues in wastewater disposal: recycling.</p>
<p>“I would have loved to see <span class="caps">EPA</span> directly ask 'what is the best way to dispose of frack wastewater?'” one scientist said, “And answer: recycling and re-use.”</p>
<p>“It’s important to note that these are only for shale gas, whereas we believe that <span class="caps">EPA</span> needs to have standards for all oil and gas wastewater, including wastewater from coalbed methane operations, so this is in no way a full fix to the problem,” added Kate Sinding, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, also asked by DeSmog to review.</p>
<p>Of course, the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s draft document on the wastewater must be read against the backdrop of certain realities. Laws are only as good as their enforcement.</p>
<p>The <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s new document is strong in many ways. But recent history has shown us nothing if not that the <span class="caps">EPA</span> often pulls out of enforcement actions and investigations when confronted by strong industry opposition. To be clear, the front-line scientists and regional officials in closest contact with the effects of shale gas extraction have rarely been the problem when it comes to enforcement. It has often been the political appointees that have pulled back on the federal agencies' duties.</p>
<p>In June, the agency <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/epas-abandoned-wyoming-fracking-study-one-retreat-of-many">pulled out</a> of investigating water contamination claims in Pavilion, <span class="caps">WY</span> after the industry and its allies in Congress pushed back against the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s initial findings (<span class="caps">EPA</span>'s own internal watchdog Inspector General later <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/12/24/epa-drinking-water-fracking/">concluded</a> that the original investigation had been justified).<br /><br />
Al Armendariz, who was the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s top administrator for oil-rich southern states including Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/al-armendariz-epa-official-resigns_n_1464919.html">driven from office</a> after Republicans in Congress took aim at him over comments he made about his approach to law enforcement. There was also the instance where <span class="caps">EPA</span> pulled back from its investigation in Dimock, Pennsylvania in 2012 — but then internal agency documents obtained by the <span class="caps">LA</span> Times <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/29/obama-epa-censored-fracking-water-contamination-study-dimock-pennsylvania">showed</a> staff believed fracking had caused water contamination there.</p>
<p>Nowhere is this pattern clearer than when it comes to the Congressionally-mandated <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/hfstudy">federal fracking study</a> that is supposed to assess whether fracking poses a threat to drinking water. That study is now long overdue, and i<span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">t serves as a textbook example of the dichotomies within <span class="caps">EPA</span>.<br /><br />
According to the New York Times, which </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04gas.html?ref=drillingdown" style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">reviewed leaked drafts</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> of the study over time, important topics like landfill runoff from drilling waste disposal sites and modeling whether rivers can dilute fracking wastewater after it is processed by treatment plants, were cut from study plans as they progressed up to the political appointees, at times over the objections of <span class="caps">EPA</span> staffers on the front line.</span></p>
<p><span class="caps">EPA</span> higher-ups even attempted to muzzle staff and prevent them from speaking about ambitions in that study, the leaked documents showed.<br /><br />
“He could not have been more adamant or clear about the development of any documentation related to our efforts on Marcellus,” David Campbell, director of the <span class="caps">E.P.A.</span> Region 3 Office of Environmental Innovation, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/04/us/20110304-gas-documents3.html#document/p425/a10424">wrote</a> as he described the instructions he had been given by the agency’s regional administrator, Shawn M. Garvin. “His concern is that if we spell out what we think we want to do (our grandest visions) that the public may have access to those documents and challenge us to enact those plans.”</p>
<p>With internal conflicts rendering the <span class="caps">EPA</span> slow and erratic in its response to fracking-related pollution problems, citizen groups have tried to fill the void and enforce environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act. These groups have <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2013/10/29/Suit-Plant-discharging-drilling-waste/stories/201310290078">sued</a> over treatment plants that have failed to fully remove pollutants before releasing the wastewater into drinking water supplies.</p>
<p>“Because state and federal agencies have not taken an aggressive approach to dealing with drilling wastewater discharges, it has taken years to start to get this problem under control,” explained Mr. Arnowitt. “Going to court is not an easy route to take for citizen groups to get action on gas drilling wastewater discharges. The cost of litigation is always an issue, especially if you are trying to get court action in a timely manner.”<br /> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit:<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-174440519/stock-photo-operating-oil-and-gas-well-detail-profiled-on-white-and-grey-sky.html?src=4DfVCV3YtnxMMYM6q1foLQ-1-13"> Operating oil and gas well detail profiled on white and grey sky</a>, via Shutterstock. </span></p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6349">hydrofracking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6351">shale</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6280">Waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16585">radioactive waste</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7512">Toxic Waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11835">flowback</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7112">brine</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1471">Environmental Protection Agency</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16586">NPDES</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16587">treatment plants</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15190">sewage treatment plants</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16588">industrial wastewater treatment plants</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16589">POTW</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16590">CWT</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13963">Permits</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16591">discharge permits</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16592">grandfathered</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5670">Clean Water Act</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/4317">Natural Resources Defense Council</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16593">EPA staff</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16594">EPA higher-ups</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11447">rivers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16595">streams</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16596">tap water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16597">mystery fluids</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16598">99 percent sand and water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16599">harmless</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16600">guar gum</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16601">ice cream</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6159">benzene</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16602">MCLs</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16603">human health</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2581">water quality</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10995">aquatic life</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16604">NIOSH</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7143">fracking chemicals</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16605">deaths</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16606">production tanks</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10345">wells</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16607">gas wells</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15436">oil wells</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16608">shale wells</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16609">fluids</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11516">chemicals</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16610">FAQ</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/16611">frequently asked questions</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14148">recycling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11436">coalbed methane</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8117">Enforcement</a></div></div></div>Wed, 28 May 2014 12:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly8167 at http://www.desmogblog.comAfter Over a Decade of Fracking, Oversight of Industry's Radioactive Waste Still Lackinghttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/04/16/after-over-decade-fracking-oversight-industry-s-radioactive-waste-still-lacking
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_73342876.jpg?itok=XuTK-foU" width="200" height="200" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>It has been roughly twelve years since fracking launched the great shale rush in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> and the biggest problem with the technology — how to safely dispose of the enormous quantities of toxic waste generated — remains unsolved.</p>
<p>In particular, regulators have struggled to fully understand or police the hazards posed by radioactivity found in fracking waste.</p>
<p>The most common form of radioactivity in shale waste comes from radium-226, which happens also to be an isotope that takes the longest to decay. To be exact, radium-226’s half-life of roughly 1,600 years means that well over a millennium and a half from now, more than half of the radium that fracking brings to the surface today will still be emitting dangerous radioactive particles.</p>
<p>Concern about the waste has taken on renewed urgency in light of a <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/">detailed report</a> published in <em>Environmental Health Perspectives</em> (<span class="caps">EHP</span>), a peer-reviewed scientific journal which is backed by the National Institutes of Health. The study concluded that worrisome and extensive gaps in federal and state oversight of this radioactivity problem still persist.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>At the federal level, radioactive oil and gas waste is exempt from nearly all the regulatory processes the general public might expect would govern it,” the researchers wrote. “State laws are a patchwork.’”</p>
<p>This is not an entirely new finding. Several years ago, a New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown">investigative piece</a> highlighted how the oil and gas industry routinely dumped radium-laced waste water into rivers. State regulators in Pennsylvania and the oil and gas industry adamantly denied there was a problem.</p>
<p>So what's changed? The recent academic study concludes that even several years later, worrisome oversight lapses remain. As such, the researchers wrote, there is continuing reason for concern.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>We are troubled by people drinking water that [could potentially have] radium-226 in it,” David Brown, a public health toxicologist with the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/">told</a> the researchers (insert in original). “When somebody calls us and says ‘is it safe to drink our water,’ the answer is ‘I don’t know.’”</p>
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<p>But there is more that makes this recent study important. Much of the public’s attention has focused on the hazards of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/04/fracking-us-toxic-waste-water-washington">280 billions of gallons</a> of radioactive wastewater generated every year by drillers. Regulators have found it difficult to keep tabs on how that waste is handled or how it is disposed, often relying on data self-reported by drillers. A study last year found that over half of Marcellus wastewater <a href="http://e360.yale.edu/feature/as_fracking_booms_growing_concerns_about_wastewater/2740/">still winds up</a> sent to treatment plants that discharge into rivers and streams.</p>
<p>However, in order to truly keep tabs on all of the radioactive materials from fracking, it’s necessary to understand that the radium often winds up accumulating on the surfaces <span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">it comes into contact with </span><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">— dirt, pipes and holding tanks.</span></p>
<p>Some of the researchers’ most interesting findings come from a little-noticed study published in 2013 that found that the soil in fracking wastewater pit soil can carry elevated levels of radioactivity, even after drillers pull up stakes and complete their cleanup efforts.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&amp;backto=issue,8,13;journal,6,92;linkingpublicationresults,1:300327,1">that 2013 study</a>, Alisa Rich, professor at the University of North Texas’s School of Public Health, and Ernest Crosby, who spent 28 years as a engineering professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, took a look at the wastewater impoundment pits where drillers often store wastewater before trucking it away for treatment, injection underground or recycling.</p>
<p>Although the study was quite small, based on just two sites on farmland in Texas, its findings were striking.</p>
<p>One of the two pits tested was still actively being used to store fracking wastewater. The other was a site where a pit had been drained and the surface restored and leveled to match the surrounding farmland, where livestock feed was being grown, and the samples were taken from a depth of six inches.</p>
<p>They were surprised to find that the drained pit still showed elevated levels of radioactivity. They wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Data from this limited field study showed elevated levels of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation to be present in reserve pit/sludge material and also in the soil of a vacated reserve pit after draining and grading to original topographic levels. Based on the use of the pit, the presence of radioactive materials was not anticipated. Agricultural land adjacent to the drained reserve pit may have an increased potential for radioactive material taken up in livestock feed crops growing on the land due to wind transport, runoff and migration of soil on adjacent land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They cautioned, however, against inferring that all drained pits would show elevated radioactivity, explaining that the radioactivity could have been there before the pit was used to store fracking wastewater, in part because the oil and gas industry’s long history in the region meant that they did not know whether that land already had been contaminated before it was used to store wastewater.</p>
<p>Their unexpected findings indicated, however, that more research is needed into how adequate remediation is when it comes to wastewater impoundments, creating new questions about the adequacy of cleanup regulations for shale gas well sites.</p>
<p>In some states in the Marcellus region, where radioactivity levels are generally higher than in Texas, drillers are permitted to simply bury solid waste like wastewater impoundment liners on site. In West Virginia, for example, drillers may simply <a href="http://marcellus-wv.com/online-courses/waste/marcellus-issues-in-west-virginia-an-introduction-2/marcellus-issues-in-west-virginia-an-introduction-1">bury liners</a> used to store wastewater from vertical gas wells, although they may be required to obtain a landowner’s permission if the well is horizontally drilled. </p>
<p>The propensity for radium to accumulate also raises questions about the metal tanks, trucks and pipes used to transport fracking wastewater.</p>
<p>Combined with other elements like barium or strontium, the radium can form radioactive flakes on metal pipes used to transport the wastewater, for example, a problem that regulators refer to as pipe-scale. In filters, like the ones recently discovered <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/12/3395601/radioactive-oil-socks-found/">illegally dumped </a>in North Dakota, the radioactive materials can also start to build up. If enough radium concentrates in one place, the radiation it produces can become strong enough to potentially penetrate a person’s clothing and skin, making it hazardous to simply be near it.</p>
<p>But the <em>Environmental Health Perspectives</em> review found that there is little oversight to protect workers from radioactive accumulation.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Workers are covered by some federal radiation protections,” author Valerie J. Brown wrote, “although a 1989 safety bulletin from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration noted that <span class="caps">NORM</span> sources of exposure ‘may have been overlooked by Federal and State agencies in the past.’”</p>
<p>State regulators in Pennsylvania told the researchers that there was no evidence indicating that workers or the public faced a health risk from the radioactivity.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>But given the wide gaps in the data,” Ms. Brown noted, “this is cold comfort to many in the public health community.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:8px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-73342876/stock-photo-the-earth-oriented-to-asia-surrounded-by-barrels-of-nuclear-waste.html?src=0Q1cvnd_tGByPg27r22prQ-1-79">The Earth, Oriented to Asia surrounded by barrels of nuclear waste</a>, via <em>Shutterstock</em>. </span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8799">Marcellus</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13209">radium-226</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15908">half life</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15909">decay</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8479">radon</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14033">peer-reviewed</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9871">National Institutes of Health</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15910">fracking pits</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14129">wastewater impoundments</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15911">liners</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14327">barium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14328">strontium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/10407">remediation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15065">clean up</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15912">buried liners</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15913">Environmental Health Perspectives</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6444">public health</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15914">David Brown</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/917">texas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2625">pennsylvania</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/3035">west virginia</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15915">pits</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15612">tests</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15916">alpha radiation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15917">beta radiation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15918">gamma radiation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15919">livestock</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12599">Crops</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12585">soil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15920">dirt</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15921">pipes</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15922">tanks</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14143">workers</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11121">OSHA</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1088">North Dakota</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15923">radioactive dumping</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15924">Valerie J. Brown</a></div></div></div>Thu, 17 Apr 2014 12:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly8004 at http://www.desmogblog.comResearch Shows Some Test Methods Miss 99 Percent of Radium in Fracking Wastehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/23/some-testing-methods-can-miss-99-percent-radium-fracking-waste-new-research-reports
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/shutterstock_163014368.jpg?itok=6jC7P9VN" width="200" height="113" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Every year, fracking generates <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/04/fracking-us-toxic-waste-water-washington">hundreds of billions</a> of gallons of wastewater laced with corrosive salts, radioactive materials and many other chemicals. Because some of that wastewater winds up in rivers after it’s treated to remove dangerous contaminants, regulators across the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> have begun to develop testing regimens to gauge how badly fracking wastewater is polluted and how effective treatment plants are at removing contamination.</p>
<p>A newly published <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ez5000379">scientific study</a>, however, shows that testing methods sometimes used and recommended by state regulators in the Marcellus region can dramatically underestimate the amount of radioactive radium in fracking wastewater.</p>
<p>These test methods can understate radium levels by as much as 99 percent, according to a scientific paper published earlier this month in <em>Environmental Science and Technology Letters</em>. The tests, both recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency for testing radium levels in drinking water, can be thrown off by the mix of other contaminants in salty, chemical-laden fracking brine, researchers found.</p>
<p>Not all the radium tests from the Marcellus region dramatically understate radioactivity. Many researchers, both public and private, have used a method, called gamma spectroscopy, that has proved far more reliable than the <span class="caps">EPA</span> drinking water method. But the results of the research serve as a warning to regulators in states across the U.S., as they make decisions about how to monitor radioactivity in fracking waste.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>People have to know that this <span class="caps">EPA</span> method is not updated” for use with fracking wastewater or other highly saline solutions, <a href="http://http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/03/Analytical-Test-Underestimate-Radioactivity-Fracking.html">said </a>Avner Vengosh, a geochemist at Duke University.</p>
<p>The team of scientists from the University of Iowa tested “flowback water,” the water that flows out from a shale well after fracking, using several different test methods. The <span class="caps">EPA</span> drinking water method detected less than one percent of radium-226, the <a href="http://www.marcellus-shale.us/radioactive-shale.htm">most common</a> radioactive isotope in Marcellus wastewater.</p>
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<p>Several scientific studies have cited radium results obtained using the flawed test methods, including a widely-cited 2011 United States Geological Survey <a href="http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2011/5135/pdf/sir2011-5135.pdf">paper</a> on radium from Appalachian gas wells, a 2012 <a href="http://catskillcitizens.org/learnmore/Fracking-Flowback-Brine.pdf">paper</a> which nonetheless found that radium levels in the wastewater were “commonly hundreds of times the <span class="caps">US</span> drinking water standards,” and a 2013 <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es304638h">paper</a> that sought to “guide water management strategies” by mapping where certain contaminants were most concentrated. Some of the flawed test results cited in these papers were provided by Pennyslvania state regulators.<br /><br />
The University of Iowa researchers also ran tests on a sample that was chemically similar to their fracking brine samples, but that had known amounts of radium added to the mix, and found that one method, gamma spectroscopy, proved vastly more reliable than other techniques. Gamma spectroscopy has long been considered the gold standard for this type of testing, and the new research helps confirm that method’s accuracy.</p>
<p>Since some fracking wastewater is sent through treatment plants that discharge into the rivers many Americans cities and towns draw drinking water from, accurately gauging how much radium is in the water before and after treatment is key to ensuring that radioactive fracking waste does not pollute public water supplies. In 2011, a front-page New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown">investigative report</a> revealed that regulators in Pennsylvania had failed to adequately monitor radioactivity and other contamination in Marcellus waste, even though they knew it was being sent to ill-equipped waste treatment plants.</p>
<p>After that report came out, nearby New York state, where a moratorium on shale drilling has <a href="http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/22414/20130724/ny-fracking-moratorium-enters-6th-year">persisted since 2008</a>, updated its draft review of fracking’s potential environmental impacts. In that 2011 review, New York state <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/47554.html">recommended</a> using the <span class="caps">EPA</span> drinking water tests, often referred to as <span class="caps">EPA</span> methods 903 or 904, for use on flowback water. New York’s <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/87420.html">proposed fracking regulations</a>, drafted based on that review, are currently silent on the methodology for fracking wastewater, though they do require gamma spectroscopy for testing solid waste.</p>
<p>No tests, regardless of methodology, have shown fracking wastewater on its own is so radioactive that simply being near it could cause harm to a person. For radioactivity to be dangerous at the levels found in fracking wastewater, a person must eat, drink or breathe in the radioactive materials, either directly or from contaminated fish. However, radioactive material can concentrate over time and levels can rise dramatically. For example, the sediments downstream from one Pennsylvania treatment plant were <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/07/18/treatment-plants-illegally-disposing-radioactive-wastewater/">found to carry</a> concentrated amounts of radium, enough to potentially pose a radioactivity exposure threat.</p>
<p>Prof. Michael Schultz of the University of Iowa, one of the researchers who conducted the new study, said that many experts in the field were already generally aware of the shortcomings of the <span class="caps">EPA</span> drinking water testing method.</p>
<p>This research could, however, raise awareness of the <span class="caps">EPA</span> tests’ shortcomings and prevent other states from adopting the recommendations from Marcellus-region regulators.</p>
<p>The paper, funded by the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Environmental Management Solutions, comes soon after <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/12/3395601/radioactive-oil-socks-found/">the discovery</a> of low-level radioactive waste materials from the oil industry dumped in an abandoned gas station in Noonan, North Dakota.</p>
<p>That incident highlights the ways that states have not only struggled to find out exactly how badly fracking waste is contaminated, but also how they’ve struggled to prevent that waste from getting out into the environment.</p>
<p>That gas station was filled with more than 200 contractor bags filled with illegally dumped radioactive filters from oil and gas production.</p>
<p>The dump site drew national media attention. “The fact that North Dakota has no state plan for dealing with the tons of radioactive material they’re letting the drilling industry produce every day other than telling local cities and counties to charge people $1,000 a filter if they try to throw the stuff away, that genius system has now earned tiny Noonan, <span class="caps">ND</span> and this site the distinction of being five times as radioactive as a site as what humans are supposed to live with,” <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/oil-companies-dumping-radioactive-waste-in-nd-193641539636">said</a> Rachael Maddow in a nearly 15 minute segment on the incident.</p>
<p>But what's received less attention is that the industry has also been caught 95 times trying to illegally dump radioactive waste in North Dakota between last January and this February, according to an Associated Press <a href="http://www.willistonherald.com/news/ap-nearly-illegal-oil-waste-dumps-in-n-d/article_3c7d8b30-a726-11e3-b237-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=jqm">review</a>. The total fines actually issued when these people were caught: zero dollars. They were simply told to promise to dispose of it properly.</p>
<p>Even when people are directly caught dumping fracking waste, penalties can be merely a slap on the wrist. Fracking wastewater has also been illegally dumped into public water supplies and accidentally spilled into rivers in streams. On March 20, an Ohio man was <a href="http://www.wofac.org/2014/03/3-years-probation-for-employee-who.html">sentenced</a> to 300 hours of community service and probation for illegally dumping oil and gas waste into a Mahoning river tributary.</p>
<p>Given the flaws in oversight and enforcement, some are skeptical that states can control the radioactive waste from fracking.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>[It’s] the worst illegal radioactive dump the state has seen yet,” Ms. Maddow said as she described the Noonan incident. “But nobody is expecting that it’s going to be the worst one forever.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-163014368/stock-photo-yellows-barrels-containing-radioactive-material.html?src=PbKUWX2ZaiJxyfWIwWSLzA-1-82">Yellow Barrels Containing Radioactive Materials</a>, via Shutterstock.</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7277">shale oil</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8488">radioactivity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15612">tests</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15613">99 percent</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15614">scientific study</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15615">University of Iowa</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6685">Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15616">EPA drinking water test method</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15617">903</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15618">904</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15619">gamma spectroscopy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15620">accuracy</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/1088">North Dakota</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/911">new york</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15621">Noonan</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/15622">Rachael Maddow</a></div></div></div>Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7940 at http://www.desmogblog.comCoast Guard Proposal to Allow Barges to Haul Fracking Wastewater Draws Fire From Environmentalistshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/11/09/coast-guard-plans-allow-fracking-wastewater-shipment-barge-under-fire
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/barge_0.jpg?itok=Kv5Etwsz" width="200" height="133" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard released plans that would allow wastewater from shale gas to be shipped via barge in the nation’s rivers and waterways on October 30 — and those rules have kicked up a storm of controversy. The proposal is drawing fire from locals and environmentalists along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers who say the Coast Guard failed to examine the environmental impacts of a spill and is only giving the public 30 days to comment on the plan.<br /><br />
Three million <a href="http://www.ohioriverfdn.org/education/ohio_river_facts/">people</a> get their water from the Ohio River, and further downstream, <a href="http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/riverslakes/explore/explore-the-mississippi-river-think-you-know-the-river.xml">millions more</a> rely on drinking water from the Mississippi. If the Coast Guard's <a href="http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg521/docs/CG-ENG.ProposedPolicy.ShaleGasWasteWater.pdf">proposed policy</a> is approved, barges carrying <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/shale-drillers-eager-move-wastewater-barges">10,000 barrels</a> of fracking wastewater would float downstream from northern Appalachia to Ohio, Texas and Louisiana.</p>
<p>Environmentalists say a spill could be disastrous, because the wastewater would contaminate drinking water and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-chameides/fracking-water-its-just-s_b_4045936.html">complicated brew</a> of contaminants in fracking waste, which include corrosive salts and radioactive materials, would be nearly impossible to clean up.<br /><br />
The billions of gallons of wastewater from fracking represent one of the biggest bottlenecks for the shale gas industry.<br /><br />
States atop the Marcellus shale are brimming with the stuff. Traditionally, oil and gas wastewater is disposed by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/injection-wells-the-poison-beneath-us">pumping it underground</a> using wastewater disposal wells, but the underground geology of northeastern states like <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/tag/deep-injection-well/">Pennsylvania</a> makes this far more difficult than in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/us/wastewater-disposal-wells-proliferate-along-with-fracking.html">states like Texas</a>, and Ohio has suffered a spate of earthquakes that federal researchers concluded were linked to these wastewater wells. The volumes of water used by drillers for the current shale gas boom are unprecedented.</p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">During </span><a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/fracking/" style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">fracking</a><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, millions of gallons of water are mixed with chemicals and sand and blasted into underground shale rock layers to shatter the rock and release minute pockets of trapped natural gas and other fossil fuels like propane or oil. The precise chemicals used in any given well can vary widely, and drillers are not required to tell the public what’s in the specific mix — plus the water picks up </span><a href="http://fcir.org/2013/04/24/florida-fracking-bills-moving-through-legislature/" style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">corrosive salts</a><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">, naturally occurring radioactive materials and reactive metals like </span><a href="http://www.marcellus-shale.us/drilling_wastewater.htm" style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">strontium and barium</a><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span><br /><br />
After wastewater returns to the surface from a fracked well, it is collected in <a href="http://www.marcellus-shale.us/impoundments.htm">large open pits</a> or in tanks. In Pennsylvania, a single wastewater lagoon, the Jon Day Impoundment outside Washington, <span class="caps">PA</span>, can hold 13 to 15 million gallons of fracking wastewater. In West Virginia, another pit can hold 18.2 million gallons.<br /><br />
All that water has to go somewhere; state regulations don’t allow it to sit there forever.<a href="http://www.earthworksaction.org/media/detail/new_fracking_report_finds_high_levels_of_water_consumption_and_waste_genera#.Unx3ficuedw"> Less than ten percent</a> of water used in fracking is ultimately “recycled,” or filtered and used to frack another gas well, a recent report from San Jose State University concluded. Some of the water injected remains underground in the shale rock itself, but the rest of it flows back to the surface and must be disposed.<br /><br />
The Coast Guard’s plan would allow companies to ship this wastewater via barge to disposal sites downstream.<br /><br />
“Waterways are the least costly way of transporting it,” James McCarville, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, which advocates for waterway transport, <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">told PublicSource</a>. “We look forward to being able to get the trucks off the highways as quickly as possible.”<br /><br />
Barges have a stronger safety record than trucks or trains, proponents argue.<br /><br />
Barge companies had one spill of 1,000 gallons or more for every 39,404 ton-miles, a Texas Transportation Institute report found in 2012. Trucks average one such spill per 8,555 ton-miles and on average, trains had one spill every 58,591 ton-miles.<br /><br />
But opponents say there’s a crucial difference: trucks and trains usually spill onto land, but a barge would send wastewater directly into the river.<br /><br />
“If and when there’s a spill, that can’t be cleaned up,” <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">said</a> Benjamin Stout, a biology professor at Wheeling Jesuit University, about 60 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. “That means it’s going to be in the drinking-water supply of millions of people.”<br /><br />
When barges get into accidents, the leaks tend to be much larger than a tanker truck spill. On January 27,<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/shale-industry-moves-ship-fracking-waste-barge-threatens-drinking-water-supplies"> two barges crashed</a> into a bridge on the Mississippi river, causing an oil spill from a ruptured fuel tank carrying 80,000 gallons of light sweet crude and leading to a partial shutdown of the lower Mississippi's shipping traffic and a backup of over 800 barges.<br /><br />
And with an oil spill, regulators have <a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16768492-barges-stuck-as-oil-spill-jams-mississippi-river">some tools</a> to stop the spill from spreading. Not so with fracking wastewater.<br /><br />
“Nobody has figured out what the safe thing is to do if fracking water gets in our drinking water,” Tom Hoffman, Western Pennsylvania director of the environmental group Clean Water Action, <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4988721-74/fracking-stephaich-barges#axzz2k0gNwgJr">told local reporters</a>.<br /><br />
Shippers acknowledge there is a difference between a tanker full of one chemical and a barge full of shale gas waste. “Gasoline is gasoline, chlorine is chlorine. You know what you're getting. But frackwater is going to be different company by company and well by well,” Peter Stephaich, chairman and <span class="caps">CEO</span> of Washington County-based Campbell Transportation Co, <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4988721-74/fracking-stephaich-barges#axzz2k0gNwgJr">told</a> the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.<br /><br />
The Coast Guard's proposal would require shippers to test each shipment, so they know what each barge holds. But the plan contains a key loophole — if a fracking formula is labeled a trade secret, it will not need to be disclosed. “[T]he identity of proprietary chemicals may be withheld from public release,” the Coast Guard’s policy states.<br /><br />
“All they have to do is say 'proprietary information' and they don’t have to do anything” to make information available to the public, Prof. Stout <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">told PublicSource</a>, which has reported on the proposal in-depth.<br /><br />
Those living downstream from one major shipping company <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403">GreenHunter Water</a>, which has nearly completed a new terminal to ship shale wastewater by barge, remain nervous. City Councilwoman Gloria Delbrugge told local reporters she is not happy about the new plant in her town. GreenHunter Water is 1.2 miles upstream from the city of Wheeling's drinking water treatment plant.<br /><br />
“I won't be there to cut the ribbon for them,” Ms. Delbrugge <a href="http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/590847/GreenHunter-Set-To--Start-Work-on-Plant.html?nav=515">said</a> in mid-October. “I don't like them, I don't want them and I don't trust them.”<br /><br />
The Coast Guard’s policy would turn a <a href="http://www.energyjustice.net/map/server-test/uploads/meigscan-greenhunter-nepa-demand.pdf">blind eye to spills</a>, but it acknowledges some difficulties posed by radioactive materials in shale wastewater, focusing on the possible harm to barge workers.<br /><br />
Radium and uranium are present at low levels in fracking wastewater, but these elements are naturally attracted to barium and strontium — which just so happen to also be found in the briny waste. Barium and strontium tend to accumulate on metal surfaces — a problem so common that the oil and gas industry has given the flaky build-up a name: “pipe scale.” These scales of barium and strontium can make pipes so radioactive that they are no longer safe to handle. The same thing could happen, the Coast Guard plan suggests, to barges.<br /><br />
GreenHunter officials have said that the levels of radioactivity are extremely low.<br /><br />
It is true that the naturally occurring radioactive materials in a given gallon of frackwater are low. But if enough shale wasterwater flows past a certain point, the low levels of radioactivity can start to accumulate.<br /><br />
For example, a recent <a href="http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/07/pennsylvania-streams-contaminated-radioactive-water-fracking-research-finds/">Duke University study </a>tested riverbed soils downstream from one wastewater plant and measured radiation levels 200 times of those detected in water samples upstream. “The radioactivity levels we found in sediments near the outflow are above management regulations in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> and would only be accepted at a licensed radioactive disposal facility,” said professor Robert B. Jackson said in a <a href="http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/news/radioactive-shale-gas-contaminants-found-at-wastewater-discharge-site">press release</a>.<br /><br />
These levels have caught the attention of Coast Guard officials. “The Coast Guard is concerned that, over time, sediment and deposits with radioisotopes may accumulate on the inside of the barge tank surface and may pose a health risk to personnel entering the tank,” the proposed plan says, adding that they plan to focus on how long workers will be exposed to radioactivity, and the levels likely to be found in the barge’s wastewater tanks. But nothing is said about what would happen to the radioactive materials in the event of spills.<br /><br />
With many complex questions left unanswered, critics say the Coast Guard has given the public and independent experts too little time to weigh in on its proposed policy.</p>
<p>“I’m a little disappointed to hear there’s only a 30-day public comment period,” Clean Water Action's Steve Hvozdovich <a href="http://publicsource.org/investigations/us-coast-guard-publishes-proposed-policy-moving-frack-wastewater-barge">said</a>. “Thirty days is not sufficient in my mind.”<br /><br />
Others say the problem is actually the amount of waste generated by the industry and that no matter how it’s transported, it remains a problem.<br /><br />
“Transporting drilling waste by truck leads to increased air pollution, risks accidents and spills, puts undue pressure on local roads and infrastructure,” Erika Staaf of PennEnvironment <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/coast-guard-seeks-comments-on-proposal-to-allow-barges-to-carry-shale-gas-wastewater/2013/11/05/b9e833fa-463b-11e3-95a9-3f15b5618ba8_story.html">told the Associated Press</a>, but “transporting this waste by barge in our nations rivers is unnecessarily risky.”</p>
<p>The public comment period ends November 29.</p>
<p>Comments can be filed in three ways: 1) Go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov;">www.regulations.gov;</a> 2) Fax comments to 202-493-2251; or 3) Mail them to Docket Management Facility (M-30), <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Transportation, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. <span class="caps">SE</span>., Washington, <span class="caps">D.C.</span> 20590-0001. All comments must include the docket number, <span class="caps">USCG</span>-2013-0915.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: <em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-121796419/stock-photo-picture-of-a-large-barge.html?src=EObCmiah10QHb9tb6ze-zQ-1-1">Picture of a Large Barge</a></em>, Via Shutterstock</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7136">Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6879">Radioactive</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6074">fracking wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11832">barges</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11836">Ohio River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7421">Mississippi River</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9687">Exposure</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14315">fracking flowback</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14316">fracking brine</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14317">corrosive salts</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8676">public comment</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6019">drinking water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6232">Spill</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6322">Disaster</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14136">clean-up</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14318">impoundments</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14148">recycling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6750">Disposal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14319">least costly</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14320">Port of Pittsburgh Commission</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14321">Benjamin Stout</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14322">Wheeling Jesuit University</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5006">oil spill</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14323">Tom Hoffman</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14324">U.S. Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14325">proprietary chemicals</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11833">GreenHunter Water</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14326">Gloria Delbrugge</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14327">barium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14328">strontium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14329">pipe scale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14330">exposure risk</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7834">Duke University</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14331">sediments</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/9711">Robert B. Jackson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14332">barge tank</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14333">Steve Hvozdovich</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14334">PennEnvironment</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14335">Erika Staaf</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14336">truck</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14337">railroad</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14338">barging</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11384">waterways</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11447">rivers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/14339">lakes</a></div></div></div>Sat, 09 Nov 2013 19:44:42 +0000Sharon Kelly7609 at http://www.desmogblog.comAnother Pennsylvania Wastewater Treatment Plant Accused of Illegally Disposing Radioactive Fracking Wastehttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/17/another-pennsylvania-wastewater-treatment-plant-accused-illegally-disposing-fracking-radioactive-waste
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/WTC2.jpg?itok=nRqZei6k" width="200" height="120" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A Pennsylvania industrial wastewater treatment plant has been illegally accepting oil and gas wastewater and polluting the Allegheny river with radioactive waste and other pollutants, according to an environmental group which announced today that it is suing the plant.<br />
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“Waste Treatment Corporation has been illegally discharging oil and gas wastewater since at least 2003, and continues to discharge such wastewater without authorization under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Streams Law,” the notice of intent to sue delivered by Clean Water Action reads.<br />
<br />
Many pollutants associated with oil and gas drilling – including chlorides, bromides, strontium and magnesium – were discovered immediately downstream of the plant’s discharge pipe in Warren, <span class="caps">PA</span>, state regulators discovered in January of this year. Upstream of the plant, those same contaminants were found at levels 1 percent or less than those downstream, or were not present at all.<br />
<br />
State officials also discovered that the sediments immediately downstream from the plant were tainted with high levels of radium-226, radium-228 and uranium. Those particular radioactive elements are known to be found at especially levels in wastewater from Marcellus shale gas drilling and fracking, and state regulators have warned that the radioactive materials would tend to accumulate in river sediment downstream from plants accepting Marcellus waste.<br />
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“To us, that says that they are discharging Marcellus Shale wastewater, although no one admits to sending it to them,” said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania State Director for Clean Water Action.</p>
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<p>A request for comment sent to Waste Treatment Corporation has not yet been answered.<br />
<br />
The amount of radioactivity found in the Allegheny riverbed is striking. Sediments just downstream of the Waste Treatment Corporation’s discharge pipe contained over 50 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of radium-226, state records show. To put that number in rough context, the levels in found in the Allegheny are 10 times those that <span class="caps">EPA</span> <a href="http://www.epa.gov/superfund/health/conmedia/soil/cleanup.htm">requires</a> the surface soil at cleaned-up uranium mining sites to achieve.<br />
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Most of the radioactive wastes associated with fracking are too weak to cause harm to people unless they are breathed in, drank, or eaten, since the alpha and beta radioactivity they primarily give off is too weak to get past people’s skin. But at the levels discovered by state regulators, the dirt from the Allegheny’s riverbed could potentially be radioactive enough to cause harm to people who are simply near it.<br />
<br />
Once-confidential oil and gas industry <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=4&amp;ref=drillingdown">studies</a> have also pointed to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p417/a9945">another risk</a> from disposing of radioactive materials from drilling or fracking in waterways – the risk to fish and aquatic life like crustaceans and mollusks. Radium bioaccumulates in fish, meaning that the more a fish ingests contaminated water or soil over its lifetime, the more radium it will contain. If people eat those fish, those radioactive materials consumed along with the fish can do harm to people’s internal organs.<br />
<br />
In their January study, state officials did not test fish or other animals like large clams or mussels from the Allegheny to see whether they were carrying radium or other pollutants. But they did study smaller organisms, and concluded that the wastewater being discharged after being processed by Waste Treatment Corporation into the Allegheny was “negatively impacting” aquatic life, specifically bugs, snails and small mollusks in the river. Many pollution-sensitive creatures found upstream of the plant’s discharge pipe were missing downstream from the pipe.</p>
<p>“Those are the base of the food pyramid for large species like fish that people are generally more concerned about,” Mr. Arnowitt said.</p>
<p>Just last month, DeSmog <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/radioactive-materials-marcellus-shale-continue-draw-concern">reported</a> that another industrial wastewater treatment plant was sanctioned by the <span class="caps">EPA</span> for illegally discharging untreated Marcellus waste. Environmental regulators also discovered high levels of radium around the discharge pipe at the Pennsylvania Brine Treatment Josephine plant. That plant was fined over $80,000 and the owner agreed to make up to $30 million in upgrades before accepting any more Marcellus shale wastewater.<br />
<br />
The Clean Water Action lawsuit also calls attention to a troubling lack of record keeping for the toxic wastewater generated by the shale drilling boom, raising the possibility that more illegal dumping could be uncovered in the future.<br /><br />
“Currently, there are no companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale that report sending wastewater to <span class="caps">WTC</span> for disposal,” a Clean Water Action statement says, referring to Waste Treatment Corporation by its initials. “However, the presence of radioactive materials in <span class="caps">WTC</span>’s discharge indicates that <span class="caps">WTC</span>’s wastewater likely comes, at least in part, from Marcellus Shale wells.”<br /><br />
In 2011, after problems with wastewater disposal made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=all">national headlines</a>, many industrial wastewater treatment plants said that they stopped taking Marcellus wastewater and were only taking conventional oil and gas wastewater, Mr. Arnowitt said. But the levels of contaminants – including the ones associated with Marcellus waste – in the discharge at many wastewater plants never changed, he said.<br /><br />
“It was hard to figure out why everyone believed what they were saying,” he added.<br />
<br />
With a track record like this, some Pennsylvanians are skeptical about their state government’s capacity to police the drilling boom. These doubts only deepened when <a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&amp;sessYr=2013&amp;sessInd=0&amp;billBody=S&amp;billTyp=B&amp;billNbr=0259&amp;pn=1290">Senate Bill 259</a> was <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/09/corbett-signs-controversial-bill-giving-drillers-power-to-pool-leases/">signed into law</a> by Governor Corbett earlier this month. The bill was originally intended to protect landowners by making royalty payments for people who leased their lands to drillers more transparent.<br />
<br />
But a little-noticed provision slipped into that bill as an amendment has sparked an outcry. The amendment would allow drillers to pool together acreage owned by many different people and drill it all together, even if a lease wouldn’t otherwise allow the oil and gas company to do so. This move will especially facilitate Marcellus shale drilling and fracking, which often involves drilling a well horizontally under many properties.<br /><br />
“This pooling language had no place in this bill,” Trevor Walczak , vice president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/09/corbett-signs-controversial-bill-giving-drillers-power-to-pool-leases/">told local reporters</a>. ”If you wanted to address pooling, we should have been doing it in a stand alone bill we could debate, not hiding it in here and fast-tracking it through.”</p>
<p>State Representative Rep. Garth Everett, who introduced the language in the bill, <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4303895-74/bill-pooling-provision#axzz2YlOCLYKF">told</a> Pennsylvania’s TribLive he had no idea whether someone from the oil and gas industry suggested to him that provision be included. It drew little attention or debate before the bill was enacted.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>I'm serious. I don't know who exactly proposed (that amendment). We had a lot of proposals going into the bill. Legislation is brought to us by staff. I send them ideas, and they put them into a form of legislation and come back. Where the idea came from, who proposed this … section, I don't know who that individual was,” he said.</p>
<p>While Pennsylvania struggles to regulate the drilling industry, local activists are finding success in organizing outside of Harrisburg.<br /><br />
In one of Pennsylvania’s other major watersheds, the Delaware River basin, some are hailing the pull-out announced this week by two natural gas companies, Hess Corporation and Newfield Exploration Company, as a major victory for those looking to protect the Delaware watershed, which provides drinking water to 15 million people, including Philadelphia and half of New York City.</p>
<p>The two companies sent a letter informing roughly 1,300 landowners that they were abandoning plans to drill their holdings in the Delaware river basin. The landowers were part of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, and had negotiated their lease collectively.</p>
<p>“The lease is gone. It is no longer in force. They are releasing the properties,” the group's spokesman, Peter Wynne, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/AP191f2ae8055d4396b07edee9356b3f31.html">said Monday</a>.</p>
<p>That particular region has drawn international attention, in part because it's home to film-maker Josh Fox, director of Gasland <span class="caps">II</span>, who first began investigating fracking after and oil and gas company sent him an offer to lease his family's land.<br /><br />
“This proves that people, organized and passionate can actually win sometimes,” Mr. Fox <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RealTruthNow/posts/587596064626399">said</a>. “In the grand scheme of things, this is a small victory, but it's <span class="caps">HUGE</span>. It's the Upper Delaware.”<br /><br />
Economics played a major role in the lease cancellations. Newfield Exploration said the price of gas had dropped too low to justify holding leases in the area. The Delaware River Basin, unlike most of Pennyslvania, has been under a shale drilling moratorium since the Marcellus rush began.<br /><br />
“There were repeated complaints about the moratorium and the regulatory confusion, because they could not make any plans,” <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/16/gas-companies-drop-wayne-county-leases/">said</a> Mr. Wynne, whose organization has said it intends to sue over the continuing moratorium and their loss of expected royalty payments. “There’s no end in sight so that added up to them saying the heck with it.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">Photo Credit: Clean Water Action</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6687">Clean Water Action</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13207">waste treatment corporation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13208">radioactive fracking waste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13209">radium-226</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13210">radium-228</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13211">uranium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5137">hydraulic fracturing</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6040">Tom Corbett</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13212">Allegheny River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/2920">pollution</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13213">health impacts from fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8479">radon</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5760">josh fox</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13214">Gasland II</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7809">Delaware River Basin</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13225">radioactivity from fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13226">shale gas wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6074">fracking wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/13227">wastewater disposal</a></div></div></div>Thu, 18 Jul 2013 15:02:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7330 at http://www.desmogblog.comRadioactive Waste From the Marcellus Shale Continues to Draw Concernhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/03/radioactive-materials-marcellus-shale-continue-draw-concern
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/radioactivebarrel.jpg?itok=8u9dMonD" width="200" height="200" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Amid all the pushback to fracking, most of the attention has focused on what drillers put into the ground. The amount of water used. The chemicals that make up energy companies' secret mix. Whether these dangerous chemicals will contaminate our drinking water. But one of the biggest problems of fracking, indeed, the Achilles heel of this innovative drilling technique that is giving fossil fuels a second lease on life is the waste that comes out of the ground.</p>
<p>How will we handle the massive amounts of toxic waste that each well produces when fracking is used? Will we dump the millions of gallons of wastewater produced from each well into rivers, pass it through sewage treatment plants, allow it to evaporate in open-faced pits, inject it into the ground at special disposal sites?</p>
<p>One of the reasons these questions are so urgent is that this wastewater is often radioactive. When it was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?ref=drillingdown">revealed</a> in February, 2011 that Pennsylvania was not only sending millions of gallons of this waste, sometimes with radium levels 3,000 times the safe level, through sewage treatment plants incapable of correct for radioactivity which then discharged into rivers, state officials panicked and <a href="http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2012/02/ap-reports-that-no-radiation-in.html">denied</a> there was cause for concern.</p>
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<p>This January, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection <a href="http://http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/newsroom/14287?id=19827&amp;typeid=1">announced</a> that it would undertake a “comprehensive” study of radiation from oil and gas development in the state, home to the most actively drilled parts of the Marcellus shale. At the same time, the agency re-publicized results from tests downstream from wastewater treatment plants, which until 2011 had taken Marcellus wastewater carrying naturally occurring radioactive materials like radium and uranium.<br /><br />
“Most results showed no detectable levels of radioactivity, and the levels that were detectable did not exceed safe drinking water standards,” the agency said in its January statement.<br /><br />
But it turns out those results weren’t the whole story when it comes to the handling of radioactive materials from the state’s fracking boom.<br /><br />
Last week, the <span class="caps">EPA</span> <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/9FC2BD02936B253785257B73006C68F7">announced</a> it has reached a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/reg3wapd/public_notices.htm#hartpabrine">settlement</a> with an industrial waste treatment plant which had been discharging natural gas wastewater into a Pennsylvania creek without properly treating it. Environmental regulators discovered high levels of radium around the plant’s discharge pipe. The plant was fined over $80,000 and the operator agreed to make up to $30 million in upgrades before accepting any more Marcellus shale wastewater.<br /><br />
The industrial wastewater plant, Pennsylvania Brine Treatment Josephine, was first <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/contaminantcharacterizationofeffluent.pdf">studied</a> by Conrad Volz and a team of students at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, who found high levels of contaminants associated with drilling wastewater in Blacklick Creek, part of the Allegheny River watershed, where the plant discharged. Professor Volz’s team did not test for radioactivity, however. In April 2011, the Pennsylvania <span class="caps">DEP</span> <a href="http://thetartan.org/2011/4/25/scitech/marcellus">asked</a> drillers to voluntarily stop trucking wastewater to other plants that <a href="http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/03/Sewage-Plants-Struggle-Treat-Wastewater.html">discharged</a> into the state’s rivers and streams.</p>
<p>But in June of that year, state officials tested sediments around Pennsylvania Brine Treatment's Josephine plant. Those tests uncovered high levels of radium 226 – 44 times the drinking water standard – in the plant's discharge pipe.</p>
<p>There's a saying among environmental regulators that “dillution is the solution to pollution” because when contaminants are watered down, levels of toxic materials can fall below safety thresholds. Wastewater from treatment plants is discharged into rivers and streams, so many shale gas boosters argued that even if treatment plants could not remove radioactive materials, the fast-moving water could dilute any resulting contamination. But the tests around the Josephine plant showed that dilution was not sufficient – levels of radium 226 over 65 feet downstream were 66 percent higher then the drinking water standard.</p>
<p>The levels of radioactivity found at the Josephine plant were not high enough to cause any health threat to passersby or to workers, but those levels are high enough that if the radium entered a person's body – whether through an open wound or through drinking contaminated water – there could be a health hazard. Radium also <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p417/a9945">bioaccumulates</a> in fish, meaning that fish in the creek who ingested the radioactive metal could carry higher levels than were in the water.</p>
<p>In February of 2011, several months before those tests were taken, Pennsylvania had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html">drawn national attention</a> for allowing plants that discharged into drinking water sources like rivers and streams to take Marcellus wastewater, which carries higher levels of radioactive materials than waste from other oil and gas formations, without testing at any point to make sure that drinking water standards were not exceeded. Desmog has <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/radionuclides-tied-shale-gas-fracking-can-t-be-ignored-possible-health-hazard">previously reported</a> on the threat from radionuclides in shale gas waste.</p>
<p>A different round of tests of Pennsylvania rivers near treatment plants had been seized on by former state environmental officials and trumpeted as an indication that wastewater was being properly handled and that state regulations were sufficient to police the industry. But the multi-year Clean Water Act investigation of the Josephine plant, conducted under the watchful eye of the feds, turned up a markedly different result.<br /><br />
Pennsylvania state regulators’ long-run difficulty policing the industry is particularly troubling because right now, the agency charged with protecting the environment in Pennsylvania is in turmoil. The <span class="caps">DEP</span> in this state – ground zero for the shale gas boom – is being run, <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/03/part-time_dep_secretary_pennsy.html#cmpid=nwsltrhead">part-time</a>, by a person with no environmental background who is pulling double-duty as the governor’s deputy chief of staff.<br /><br />
Of course, this interim appointment was made because the former secretary, Michael Krancer, <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/03/corbetts_sinking_ship_or_reali.html">stepped down</a> while under investigation by the state’s auditor general for how his office handled water contamination testing related to shale gas.</p>
<p>All of this calls into question the ability of states to regulate fracking booms effectively.<span style="font-size:11px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><b style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </b><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline ! important; float: none;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span><br /><br />
The hazards from shale gas drilling are complex. Another concern related to the high levels of radium in shale wastewater is the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/experts-air-serious-concerns-new-york-fracking-decision">radon produced</a> alongside the natural gas. Radon, a highly carcinogenic gas, is produced when radium undergoes radioactive decay and does not burn so it could be released into houses and workplaces by gas-fired appliances.<br /><br />
Earlier this month, kitchen workers in New York City organized a public forum on the gas and the possible risks for the health of New Yorkers if a new pipeline, designed to ship Marcellus gas to major metropolises in the region, is constructed.<br /><br />
New York governor Andrew Cuomo very recently <a href="http://www.wskg.org/wskg_news/cuomo-will-make-decision-fracking-2014-election">announced</a> that he plans to make a decision on the state’s drilling moratorium soon. New York’s current assessment of the dangers from radon is thin, experts have alleged, pointing out that only a few paragraphs are devoted to the lethal gas.</p>
<p>Plans are underway to construct a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/spectra-pipeline-fracking-new-york-city-activists_n_3209242.html">pipeline</a> that would carry Marcellus gas to the nation's biggest city, New York City. But if that happens, some experts warn of a potential public health crisis. The problem centers around the way that radon breaks down. Radon has a half life of only 3.8 days, meaning that if the gas takes about a week to travel from the wellhead to the consumer, radons levels will have fallen of by 75 percent. But the Spectra pipeline would take Pennsylvania Marcellus gas to New York in less than a day, giving the radon very little time to decay.<br /><br />
New York’s current plan is to test for radon once drilling goes forward, “in order to verify that they do not pose an unanticipated health risk to end-users of the gas.” Elizabeth Glass Geltman of <span class="caps">CUNY</span> School of Public Health <a href="http://thevillager.com/2013/05/23/spectra-pipeline-radon-fear-starting-to-catch-fire/">told a crowded room</a> at the public forum this month, “If you wait for that to happen, the infrastructure will be in place and the argument will be that we can’t change the infrastructure,” she warned.<br /><br />
The science on radon in the gas is evolving – the United State Geological Service <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/MarcellusDN/usgs-study-of-radon-in-marcellus-shale-gas">sampled</a> a tiny handful of wells in a preliminary analysis and the levels they found in that sample were on the low end of the estimates made by experts. But that study only looked at 3 Marcellus wells, and the <span class="caps">USGS</span> said there was a need for further testing. The levels the <span class="caps">USGS</span> found were as high as 20 times the levels <span class="caps">EPA</span> considers safe for indoor air, so dillution should be plenty to take care of any possible health concerns, but <a href="http://www.nirs.org/radiation/radonmarcellus.pdf">some experts</a> believe other Marcellus wells may carry much higher levels of radon – and have calcualted that it could pose a serious public health threat.<br /><br />
In the meantime, some in New York are <a href="http://www.damascuscitizensforsustainability.org/2012/06/letter-to-ny-city-council-re-joint-hearings-on-radon-in-natural-gas-from-the-marcellus-shale/">pressing </a>for change through the legislature. A <a href="http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S4921-2013">state bill</a> would require monitoring for radon in all natural gas (not just Marcellus gas). But in neighboring Pennsylvania, the state only plans radon testing “as appropriate” as part of its ongoing radioactivity study.</p>
<p>Time will tell how thorough those tests will be.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5401">Marcellus shale</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/8479">radon</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12742">Spectra pipeline</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6685">Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7257">new york city</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6285">andrew cuomo</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5930">fracking moratorium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12743">wastewater treatment</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/12744">radium 226</a></div></div></div>Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000Sharon Kelly7197 at http://www.desmogblog.comShale Industry Moves to Ship Fracking Waste via Barge, Threatening Drinking Water Supplieshttp://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/05/shale-industry-moves-ship-fracking-waste-barge-threatens-drinking-water-supplies
<div class="field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/blog_teaser/public/blogimages/barge.jpg?itok=4YtG8iNS" width="200" height="150" alt="A large barge passes Pittsburgh. Image from Shutterstock." /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>It was meant to go unnoticed. A small announcement out of a commissioners’ meeting signaled plans to transport <a href="http://desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/">fracking</a> wastewater by barge down the Ohio River. But it caught the eye of locals and offers a further reminder of why handling and disposal of the wastewater is truly one of the shale drilling industry’s most important and overlooked concerns.<br />
<br />
Construction is already completed at one barging facility in the Marcellus region. A Texas-based company, GreenHunter Water, has <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120717005460/en/GreenHunter-Water-Announces-Commencement-Operations-Ohio-River">built</a> a shipping terminal and 70,000-barrel wastewater storage facility on the Ohio River in New Matamoras, Ohio. GreenHunter officials have said they are currently accepting about 3,000 barrels of fracking wastewater per day.<br /><br />
The <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Coast Guard is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/17/usa-fracking-shipping-idUSL1E8NH7A520121217">now reviewing</a> plans to barge fracking wastewater in the region’s rivers, which serve as the drinking water supplies for over half a million people. <br />
<br />
These plans have raised alarm for many reasons. In the event of a barge accident, the drinking water for major cities like Pittsburgh could be immediately contaminated; the barges themselves could become radioactive because Marcellus shale wastewater carries unusually <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p410/a9941">high levels of radium</a>; spills or illegal dumping could be harder to detect in water than on land.</p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Spills on land are easier to control. When wastewater pipelines cross rivers, wetlands, or streams, state environmental laws may require special precautions be taken in order to protect watersheds. But it is not clear what precautions would be necessary under state or federal law if frack water were to be shipped on the nations’ waterways.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Proponents of the plan point out that a single barge can carry as much wastewater as 125 trucks, which generally haul 80 to 150 barrels at a time. This means that tailpipe emissions would be slashed. And truck accidents are far more common than barging accidents.</span><br />
<br />
But the barges’ massive size is a double-edged sword; because barges can haul up to 10,000 barrels per trip, a single accident on the waterways could be disastrous.</p>
<p>On January 27, two barges <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/oil-spill-cleanup-backs-up-800-barges-along-mississippi.html">crashed into a bridge</a> on the Mississippi river, causing an oil spill from a ruptured fuel tank carrying 80,000 gallons of light sweet crude and leading to a partial shutdown of the lower Mississippi's shipping traffic and a backup of over 800 barges. Cleanup efforts are still <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-usa-barges-mississippi-idUSBRE91018V20130201">underway</a> on the Mississippi – but while oil can be partly contained with booms or skimmed from the surface of waterways, what happens if fracking wastewater, laced with hundreds of different contaminants, mixes into the rivers people get their drinking water from?<br />
<br />
Much ink has been spilled over the potential for fracking to contaminate underground water supplies through methane migration. <span class="caps">EPA</span> recently was caught <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/01/16/breaking-obama-epa-shut-down-weatherford-tx-shale-gas-water-contamination-study">bowing to pressure</a> from drilling company Range Resources to drop its investigation into this type of aquifer contamination in Texas, for example.<br />
<br />
But there’s been an inordinate amount of focus on the chemicals that go in the well, and far less attention paid to what comes out. After all, what makes this form of drilling unique is the massive amounts of toxic wastewater that fracking produces. This wastewater not only carries the chemicals that drillers deliberately inject into the ground during fracking, but also naturally-occurring elements that are radioactive, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#annotation/a10143">carcinogenic</a>, or poisonous if consumed.<br />
<br />
When most industries handle toxic waste, they’re subject to strict regulation. Hazardous material handling laws require robust tracking of waste and special handling from cradle to grave. But under federal law, oil and gas drilling waste is <a href="http://epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/oil/oil-gas.pdf">exempt</a> from these rules because it doesn’t count as “hazardous material” under the law. So regulating it is left to the states.<br />
<br />
This means that every time a shale boom arrives in a new region, state officials must climb a steep learning curve to handle the unique problems created by all of this wastewater. Ohio isn’t the only place that’s on the cusp of drilling – in California there's a slowly <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120412/fracking-hydraulic-fracturing-marcellus-shale-los-angeles-california-inglewood-oil-field-pxp-water">emerging effort</a> to tap these shale formations, for example.<br />
<br />
Pennsylvania, of course, offers a great example of how not to do it. The back story behind how this state handles their wastewater is exhibit #1 in this cautionary lesson. State regulators have struggled to accurately track what happens to the waste after it leaves the wellpad. And while drillers have at times claimed to be recycling at least 90 percent of the waste, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html?pagewanted=2">independent analysis</a> has found these claims to be overblown.<br />
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It didn’t need to be this way. In 2009, Pennsylvania regulators planned to require a manifest system for frack water, which would require it to be tracked like haz mat. But these plans were scrapped after industry lobbying. Three of the senior regulators who ditched those plans <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html?pagewanted=2">went to work</a> for the oil and gas industry after leaving the Department of Environmental Protection.<br />
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So now, it's entirely possible for truckers to leave the spigots on the back of the tankers open and to make the water disappear on rainy days en route. Fines for illegal dumping are often cheaper than the cost of legal disposal.<br />
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Sometimes haulers have been caught. One Pennsylvania wastewater hauler was <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577468921667124942.html">convicted</a> last year of instructing his employees to leave wastewater valves open, and even <a href="http://www.alternet.org/fracking/toxic-wastewater-dumped-streets-and-rivers-night-gas-profiteers-getting-away-shocking?paging=off">constructed a pipeline</a> that directly carried toxic waste from a garage to a river, and the company owner was sentenced to probation. The state’s lack of a manifest system meant that his employees could get away with simply “loosing” the waste for a long time.<br />
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The details on how this company operated came to light when employees publicly described them. But local residents had long suspected something was amiss. In its first 6 months of operation, <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s “Eyes on Drilling” tip line received roughly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p18/a10387">half a dozen complaints</a> about truckers leaving valves open as they drove down back roads.<br />
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On a river: who would notice if a tanker showed up with less than it left with?<br />
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Other dangerous chemicals are currently shipped by barge. But most hazardous material shipments involve single chemicals, while frackwater can be a mix of a wide range of substances, some mundane and others highly toxic, making the Coast Guard’s review more challenging, agency officials have said.<br />
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Another factor that makes fracking brine unique is a different kind of threat: the risk that the barges themselves could be contaminated.<br />
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Marcellus wastewater contains high levels of radium, barium, strontium and other naturally occurring elements. The radium and barium are drawn to each other, and form a flaky substance that pipeline companies call pipe-scale. This <a href="http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/tenorm/oilandgas.html#scale">pipe-scale</a> can concentrate enough radium in a single place that the pipes can be a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-documents-1.html#document/p389/a9935">radioactivity exposure threat</a>. Regulators from <span class="caps">EPA</span> and <span class="caps">OSHA</span> have crafted federal rules on how this radioactive pipe should be handled and disposed. But barge-operators will need to contend with these dangers if they decide to haul frackwater.<br />
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Economics factors add to the pressure from drillers to allow the shipments: barge transportation is expected to cost only 10 percent of what it costs to ship frackwater by truck.<br /><br />
Coast Guard officials have said that they expect to conclude their analysis within the next few months.<br />
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But some in the region remain concerned. Pennsylvania State Sen. Jim Ferlo has been vocally objecting to GreenWater Hunter’s plans.<br />
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“[G]iven the controversial nature of barging frack fluid and the fact that it has not been studied or given any final review by regulatory agencies, let alone the broader public,” Sen. Ferlo <a href="http://www.senatorferlo.com/newsroom/in-the-news/senator-ferlo-memo-on-barging-frack-water">wrote</a> in a Dec. 28 memo to the head of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, “I take great exception to the notion that the formal Commission is in support of this clearly dangerous practice that could adversely affect river quality, commerce and the health of thousands of people.”<br /> </p>
<p>Photo Credit:<em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=barge+pittsburgh&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=34096651&amp;src=2fca08b8e00d603465b766363cd36528-1-2"> </a></em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=barge+pittsburgh&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=34096651&amp;src=2fca08b8e00d603465b766363cd36528-1-2"><span style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Pittsburgh riverfront with large barge in motion</span></a><em style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;"> from Shutterstock.</em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5133">fracking</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6305">oil and gas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5565">shale gas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6843">wastewater</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11831">radium</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11832">barges</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7136">Coast Guard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11833">GreenHunter Water</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11834">spills</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11447">rivers</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/7112">brine</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11835">flowback</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11836">Ohio River</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/11837">Eyes on Drilling</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/epa">EPA</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/5433">Department of Environmental Protection</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/directory/vocabulary/6043">jim ferlo</a></div></div></div>Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:22:09 +0000Sharon Kelly6844 at http://www.desmogblog.com